The chemistry between Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell in Kogonada’s romantic fantasy “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is fire.
“I suspected we would have chemistry, but you never know until you’re actually acting,” Robbie told me Thursday while she and Farrell promoted the movie at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. “But I had a suspicion it would work.”
The actors play Sarah and David, two strangers who meet after renting cars from a mysterious rental agency. As they follow directions from a talking GPS, they walk through multiple doorways that take them back in time to their childhoods to relive pivotal moments that shaped their current adult lives.
“I’ve heard the most extraordinary things about [Robbie] through the years from the people that have worked with you both in front of and behind the camera,” Farrell said, adding, “They said she’s a mensch…She’s the loveliest person, she’s fun. She’s obviously a brilliant actress, but they didn’t say that because that is stating the obvious, and the other stuff I didn’t know, and all of it was very true and then some. It was a joy every day to be on the set with her. She’s so smart, she’s so brilliant, but she’s just kind and fun.”
Robbie did an unofficial casual background check on Farrell. “A lot of my closest girlfriends are crew members…Two of my closest girlfriends worked with you on ‘Fantastic Beasts.’ They were ADs,” Robbie said. “And they were always like, ‘He’s the best, the kindest.’ They just spoke so highly of you.”
While many of the memories Sarah and David return to are ones of trauma and sadness, “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” in theaters Sept. 19, is anything but dark or depressing. “Even though it’s got a lot of darker things, it was a very light film. Everything felt very light,” Robbie said. “It’s magical, it’s beautiful, and it’s romantic, and it does deal with real-life things, [but] it felt like we were in a golden bubble every day, and I was dreading it ending. That was the only negative thing — I was scared of it ending.”
Farrell said, “It deals with grief and loss and sorrow and loneliness and all these very human things that we all contend with, but I’ve never used the word darkness in relation to this film. No. There’s no darkness in it. Those things in and of themselves aren’t dark. They may be painful, but they’re not dark experiences.
I sat down with the two about a week after James Gunn teased the possibility of Robbie reprising Harley Quinn in the new DC universe. “That will be revealed down the line,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
Robbie said she has not been approached about future DC projects. “I’ve heard nothing,” she said.
Farrell asked her if she loves playing Harley: “You never get sick of her?”
Robbie replied, “Never. You can’t get sick of Harley. I love her so deeply. I always had high hopes for her like Batman. A character that loves on long after I’ve had a go at it.”
Robbie played Harley in 2016’s “Suicide Squad” and later in “Birds of Prey” and “The Suicide Squad.”
She would love to see how other actors portray the antihero. “I feel like I need to share Harley,” she said.
With Farrell’s award-winning work as the Penguin, perhaps the “Big Bold Beautiful Journey” co-stars can work on a Harley Quinn-Penguin crossover?
“You’ll have to ask James Gunn,” Robbie said, laughing.
“How would that work?” Farrell asked, prompting Robbie to quip, “Hot!”
“That is not the word that would come to mind,” Farrell said.
Harley and the Penguin could be DC’s new power couple?
“That,” Robbie said, “would be a demented couple.”
In a separate EW interview this week, Robbie said the Penguin was the original villain in Harley’s “Birds of Prey,” but Matt Reeves asked her not to use him because he wanted him for “The Batman.”
Farrell originated the Penguin in 2022’s “The Batman,” followed by “The Penguin” TV series. He is set to reprise the role in “The Batman” sequel.
